The Agony Of Choice - Vintage/Modern Lens Shootout

[Daniel Bichler]

It's finally here! Long nights and hours of screening are finally done!

Marco Werner and I created a unique lens shootout between modern glass and famous vintage lenses, shot on our RED DSMC2 MONSTRO 8K VV camera.
With the support of many friends and lens manufacturers, we had the possibility to test a lot of different lenses including some really special ones like the new GLASWERK ONE Anamorphics, the all new Canon Sumire Primes and many more. Our focus was not mainly set on Full Frame lenses, as we also wanted to check the sensor coverage of all the other amazing S35 lenses out there. We built a small set in our office to provide a constant lighting condition for each lens.

Now, sit back and enjoy!


The Agony Of Choice - Vintage/Modern Lens Shootout 4K

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ReEyVnN0WV0&t=0s


Tested Lenses:

- TOKINA CINEMA VISTA
- CANON SUMIRE PRIME
- GLASWERK ONE Prototype
- GLASWERK ONE + Prototype
- LOMO SQUARE FRONT
- P+S EVOLUTION
- CLAVIUS LENSES (With 2X Oval Insert)
- CLAVIUS LENSES
- LEICA R
- ZEISS OTUS
- MAMIYA SEKOR C 645
- CANON FD
- NIKON AIS
- SCHNEIDER XENON FF-PRIMES
- ARRI ZEISS STANDARD SPEED
- KOWA 16H
- SIGMA FF


Special thanks to:

Billy Gropper
Billy’s Lens Rent
David Kellermann
Viola Evang
GLASWERK
ABT cine
Schneider Kreuznach
Canon Germany
Andreas Gschossmann
Beech Studios
Friedemann Leis
Felix Baermann
Patrick Vollmers
Alex Förderer


Behind the Scenes

http://www.framed.de

 

[Dominik Muench]

geile arbeit jungs, gefaellt mir, danke fuer den aufwand !

 

[David Kellermann]

Vielen Dank nochmals, dass wir beim Shootout mit dabei sein konnten!

 

[Jack Allred]

Very awesome and generous to share!

 

[John David Pope]

Thank you for this! A wonderful test. Can we be greedy and ask for a playlist of the music?

I surprised myself by how much I like the Schneider Xenon flaring. Also found it interesting the extent to which on different makes of lenses the OOF lights are more round when in the middle of the frame but become more elliptical when the camera pans and puts them on the edge of frame.

I'm looking forward to reading the feedback / opinions from others. My problem is that I want every lens and can never bring myself to sell any lens.

 

[Ian Cresswell]

This is awesome and super helpful. Huge thank you.

 

[Jake Wilganowski]

just can’t go wrong with a Helios

Still love me a standard speed

If it’s not a k35 and it’s made by canon it’s still boring

Sigma keeps the crown for the cleanest/ sharpest / most clinical

I like the evolutions more than I thought I would, nice job they did re-creating the kowas

 

[Marco Werner]

Thank you for this! A wonderful test. Can we be greedy and ask for a playlist of the music?

I surprised myself by how much I like the Schneider Xenon flaring. Also found it interesting the extent to which on different makes of lenses the OOF lights are more round when in the middle of the frame but become more elliptical when the camera pans and puts them on the edge of frame.

I'm looking forward to reading the feedback / opinions from others. My problem is that I want every lens and can never bring myself to sell any lens.

Music is all from Artlist, Stranger Things Collection:
https://artlist.io/collection/10340/stranger-list

I was also really surprised by the Schneider Xenon, they are a bit different compared to most other flares.
And they are pretty cheap as well!

 

[Tom Gleeson]

Daniel,

Is it possible to output and upload a 4K version of your tests? When it comes to judging lenses 1920x1080 is not really sufficient and with most serious (money) projects requiring a 4K master I believe it is best to judge glass at 4K where you can see so much more nuance. The heavy YouTube compression also makes it hard but not sure what the answer is for that.

 

[Ian Cresswell]

Daniel,

Is it possible to output and upload a 4K version of your tests? When it comes to judging lenses 1920x1080 is not really sufficient and with most serious (money) projects requiring a 4K master I believe it is best to judge glass at 4K where you can see so much more nuance. The heavy YouTube compression also makes it hard but not sure what the answer is for that.

Tom,

When I watched it, it was in 4K. Make sure you're not experiencing one of those weird issues like how chrome on mac doesn't like to show 4K on YouTube or whatever those weird little issue are. But, yeah, on my PC I watched it all in 4k and it looks really great. While a high mbps master would be great, the 4K YouTube version works perfectly well to gauge almost all of the qualities of these lenses IMO.

 

[John David Pope]

Music is all from Artlist, Stranger Things Collection:
https://artlist.io/collection/10340/stranger-list

I was also really surprised by the Schneider Xenon, they are a bit different compared to most other flares.
And they are pretty cheap as well!

Thanks Marco.

 

[Tom Gleeson]

When I watched it, it was in 4K. Make sure you're not experiencing one of those weird issues like how chrome on mac doesn't like to show 4K on YouTube or whatever those weird little issue are.

Ian,

Face palm. Yes its Apples's stupid Safari Browser that won't play the 4K codec. Switching to Chrome and its all there. Its weird that Apple who make 5K screens and who pushed the Retina super high resolution screens into phones and tablets won't support YouTubes 4k codec

 

[Daniel Bichler]

Hi guys,

if you need the original 4K file, you are able to download it from here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Vfz9HP4Uaf-hmxuKs23zqeh8MVr3l2ss/view?usp=sharing

 

[Ian Cresswell]

Hi guys,

if you need the original 4K file, you are able to download it from here:

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Vfz9HP4Uaf-hmxuKs23zqeh8MVr3l2ss/view?usp=sharing

Oh awesome, thank you!

 

[Michael Lindsay]

Ambitious test... and as always it takes extra effort to share these things! Thank you..

I have spent a lot of time testing and trying to quantify the differences between different modern and classic glass (that I am interested in) and tests like these help the broader community!